They say I talk too much...
by Takira
Summary: Just a vignette, really...some musings by Duo on the subjects of war, death, Shinigami, and Heero Yuy.


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"I wonder how long we'll be able to see the moon like this."

I wasn't saying it to anyone in particular, though I did get a answer--a hypothesis, rather--from Howard. I wasn't really wondering how long I'd be able to see it 'like this' so much as how long it would be before one of us had to blow it up: you know, we'll discover too late that Oz has been working for decades on hollowing out the moon and now their entire base of operations is rioting along in there; and Treize sits on a little rocky throne in the center with his hair gelled back to cover his horns and Lady Une at his side to hide his tail.

Now, _that's_ an amusing prospect: horrifying inasmuch as I sometimes have to wonder if it weren't true, but amusing nonetheless. I find all sorts of things amusing that I shouldn't; it gives me an excuse to be happy.

Looking at the Earth from here, I guess my glass is half-full: I just don't know what it's half-full of, yet. Feels like something intoxicating, at any rate, which might explain why I'm out here...we all must be drunk or stupid, right? (actually, I may have been drunk; I recall having the mother of all hangovers when I set out, and I don't remember the night before well enough to know if I was drunk before or after I received my marching orders) Well, not quite: Quatre's here on principles. Heero's here because...well, he's Heero, he didn't really have a choice, did he? Wufei's here to prove something, and Trowa...who knows about Trowa.

It begs the question of why _I'm_ here, of course, and that's simple enough. I'm here for the same reason Heero is. Actually, in a way I'm here _because_ Heero is, but there's where it ceases to be simple. I'm here to show him things: Relena's been a spectacular failure at it thus far, but I can't fault her. She endured the misfortune of having been born female, and while I doubt she's regretting it even now, she's at something of a disadvantage.

He hasn't killed her yet, but in his hardened little mind he can argue hormones and coming of age and big stupid teary eyes as the cause. It wasn't a matter of having a heart less than steel: she just bewitched him by being female at close range. That'd be his theory, anyhow, but he didn't kill _me_ when he had the chance, and I can assure you I'm not that pretty (not without my hair down, anyhow). Plus, I had my eyes closed; just in case, you know.

It's easy enough to see his interpretations in his reactions. He intended to kill Relena and failed: went spastic and started doubting his overall effectiveness as a soldier...we probably could've lost him just to _that_. He intended to kill me and failed: scowled, gave me his gun and got me out of there without a howl or a fuss.

Really, now, do I have to go further with this comparison?

Relena just came a bit before her time, I'm afraid. The world wasn't ready to handle her and neither was Heero. He won't be able to respect a woman he can't kill until he can accept that it's safe to trust someone you can't blow away. He can't quite trust women yet, I don't think, through no fault of his own. The kid's only fifteen and has been training in space for a majority of those years; exactly when did he get the chance to reconcile the issues of the fairer sex? I will concede that they can be damned freaky at times (exhibit A: Lady Une), but they're not any freakier than the rest of the species...at most times of the month, anyhow (cue a random female to hit me now, if you like, but I couldn't resist).

If I seem a little focused on Heero just at the moment, it's because I am (see, Heero, I _can_ be logical!); as I said, he's part of the reason I entered the war effort...well, he's part of the reason I stay in it, anyhow. I was a pilot before I met him, and while I am fighting for the same cause (destroy Oz, carve the aristocratic smirk off of Treize's face and singe off his forked eyebrows--in that order), I have to admit he holds my fascination now. Before you get the wrong impression, it's not what you're thinking. This is a bit beyond the moistly mundane aspects of human relationships.

...and before you get the wrong impression about _that_ let me say in my defense that I'm human. I was born as...um, somebody, but that name's long behind me. I probably had parents (biology being what it is) and in any case, _did_ have a childhood on which I'll not expound just 'cause, well...it didn't get _all_ that interesting until I died.

Mmmyup. I died. Heero was right, you know: it hurts like hell. At that point, however, I was in pain from other things, so it was just a matter of intensity. I was pretty sure I was going to Hell, anyhow, so I figured I'd better get used to it...

_"Hey, there's still one alive."_

"It's just the kid, never mind him."

"I **brought** the mobile suit like you asked!! Why did you **do** this?!" Hell, I never lied; I guess it didn't occur to me that they did.

_"Go on, little preacher, tell me how I'm gonna be struck down. I don't see any lightning. Guess they weren't as close to God as they thought, hmm? Well, they're a lot closer now..."_

That would be when I tackled the closest one and grabbed his gun. Of all the asinine things for me to have chosen to scream at them...

_"Thou shalt not KILL!!"_ ...and I proceeded to do just that. Perhaps I just hadn't figured out what god I was meant to serve. The soldier left standing returned fire as I fled but didn't bother to pursue, and later that night as all warmth seeped out of me into a puddle on the ground, I was just a bit surprised not to meet my Maker.

Instead, I met Shinigami. Not what I call myself, I mean _the_ God of Death. Wanna know the funny thing?

She's actually quite pretty. She was also looking for some new blood...er, so to speak (people tell me I have a morbid sense of humor--I don't really see it, do you?). It seems she was somewhat understaffed to begin with, and pending war (which looked more than likely) led her to seek additional--if temporary--help.

That would be where she started addressing me personally.

Had to be someone strong, she said: it would be inefficient to grant such powers to a mortal and then have him get his empty head blown off first thing. The fact that I was young was a bonus (plus, I think she liked my braid). She offered me a deal I would've taken _now_ in a heartbeat, but at the time I was (a) still crying over Maxwell, (b) clutching my cross tight enough to make my hand bleed and wailing about killing, and (c) even after all this, attempting against all I knew to cling to what I'd been told...that God had a purpose for me.

_"And what makes you so sure this isn't it, young one?"_

"It can't be. There's no way He wants me to...to..."

"Does it matter so much?"

"YES it matters! I can't just--"

"When you pulled that trigger, Duo, you damned yourself and there's no going back. Now tell me again...does it matter so much?"

"So why don't you just send me to Hell like I deserve? Why delay punishment for what I did?"

"You can never fully atone, but so long as you are damned it leaves you freer to do good in ways you could not before--correct?"

"It doesn't work that way..."

"Child, how would you know the workings of God and Fate?"

"This isn't Fate; and you're not God."

"This is your choice; I am your hope."

"Of what?"

"Revenge."

"I...don't want revenge..."

"Then why did you shoot that man?"

"..."

"You know why that's a sin, don't you, little boy?"

"Life isn't ours to take--it's playing in the realm of God."

"And?"

"And that's why I can't do what you're asking me."

"You want to be closer to God, do you? You haven't dropped that cross yet."

"What do you care?"

"This is an opportunity, child...this is as close to Him as you'll ever get."

It all went rather quickly after that, and not without excess emotion, but that's what I'm best at most of the time. In essence, she gave me the rights and powers of a minor Death but kept my body human; that is to say, when someone finally gets lucky and kills me, I die--for good, this time, and off to Hell I go. That's my incentive for living just now. So...ech. That was pretty much it for a while: got myself caught by Dr. G and got my introduction into the weird wet (ack...did I really say wet?) wild world of Gundam piloting...

...and then I met one Heero Yuy.

I won't say it was love at first sight for two reasons. One, whatever this is, it isn't "love" in the traditional sense, and two, when I met him he was making the first of many attempts to kill Relena--and when that failed, proceeded to sink my Gundam. Those things in themselves were enough to make me other than kindly disposed to him, but as he floated facedown in the bay ("mission complete" and all that) I got a good look at his soul. It's one of the perks of being a Death: after all, you have to have some sort of idea which way a soul's going if you're about to escort it out of the world. Heero, though, he...

Okay, it sounds sappy, and I'm going to say it anyhow because I don't know any other way to get it across: his was the most exquisitely beautiful soul I'd seen, and to date I've not come across another to challenge it. It just...ugh, I hate words sometimes. The closest word I could find for it was "evanescent" and while that's pretty, it still leaves something wanting: quite a bit, actually, I mean...sum up Heero Yuy in one word? Gah.

Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad word for him. I'll have to consider it.

After that things passed kinda quickly, as they tend to do in wartime: one damned thing after another. I should know...I deal in the damned. The only comfort I can give them is that I'm one of them, and they're rarely appreciative. On the other hand, seeing that many souls pass by gave me a greater appreciation of what's to be found in Heero, and strengthened my resolve as I moved toward my recent decision: to become his guardian.

To clarify, I am not his "guardian angel"; those may or may not exist, and in any case, I doubt the average angel could take the crap Heero would give him for any real length of time. It's not only my choice that brought around this arrangement--Heero, like it or not, has come to the point that he needs a guardian, and a guardian, in this sense, is merely a caretaker of his sanity (to anyone who snickered "too late" just now: don't make me come over there). I'm a balance of sorts, a counteraction to the stresses of his life, a ballast to keep him on a somewhat even keel. Heero was always special, but it was not until recently that he became so comparatively fragile; that, I attribute primarily to Doctor J.

Calm down before you start ranting at me. I know Doctor J is the one that gave Heero the opportunity to be a pilot, who trained him to his current peak of physical performance and efficiency. Heero as he exists now could not have existed without Doctor J's influence. I'm not arguing with that, I'm really not. My misgivings about the man stem from the fact that he took a human boy and proceeded to try and beat the humanity out of him completely.

It's one thing to remain calm in the face of battle, to be removed from the action; there are times when you can't concentrate on the meaning of what you're doing or you'll choke. That doesn't mean that you can't think about things later--there's simply no way to keep everything perpetually pushed to the very back of your mind, and there's no escaping it completely. I think that's where Doctor J went wrong with Heero. He thought he could make the boy into a biological weapon of sorts, a bionic machine with all the skill and intelligence of a human being and none of those troublesome byproducts like emotion. What a shame that it doesn't work that way; small wonder Heero's dancing on the ragged edge.

"The Perfect Soldier". I'd like to get some military opinions on what that would define, but I can't help thinking that being human should factor into it somewhere; otherwise you may as well be a machine, and the whole concept behind Gundam pilots was the idea that they could _control_ their perfect machines by being, in some elemental ways, superior to them. I was afraid the advent of mobile dolls would prove me wrong on this point, but as it turns out, it backs me up wonderfully: they're strong, hyper fast, brutally efficient, and utterly without judgement functions. They still require humans to program them, and even then it has to be done with exaggerated care; the talented robots cannot interpret orders, and the slightest error on the part of a human operator spells disaster for any unfortunates in the doll's path.

One major advantage of these machines is that they have no survival instinct at all; they'll never hesitate to rush toward the jaws of destruction, never sacrifice an attack for overcautious defense. It's frightening to watch them work so single-mindedly, if you're used to human pilots. It's also how Heero works when he's at his worst.

Do you see why I'm worried?

I'm here to show him that there's more to life than death (how's that for irony?), that sometimes a seeming obstacle, on closer inspection, is a stepping stone. He hasn't killed me yet; I don't know if that's a sign of promise or resignation from him. I still get nightmares of him plunging headfirst earthward--and this time not catching himself, his body shattering and rolling down the rocks, his wings spread broken in the sand. He's a trigger's touch away from death every day of his life; my presence only serves to make that statement more literal.

He doesn't know what I am, doesn't know that I watch him (if he did, it'd earn me at least another "omae o kurosu" and probably further action to back it up), even now as he stands atop a ruined building: a skeletonesque figure watching the moon as I am, his silhouette blending with the cut shadows of its face.

I wonder how long I'll be able to see the moon like this.

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End file.
